The Friend I Keep Inviting Everywhere

What I want for my birthday this year no one will be able to wrap up in a neat little package. Partly because I have absolutely no idea if I even want anything, but mostly because no one but myself can give this gift to me.

This year, on my birthday, I am 28 years old – and I think it is about time I left all the uncertainty and fear in the past. I’m not saying that I haven’t tried my hardest to do so before but perhaps that’s the point – am I trying too hard? Trying to make something “go away” even though I spend a lot time thinking about it, nay expecting it; seems a little redundant.

To put it another way, it’s almost as if Anxiety is a person that I keep inviting to my house, on drives in my car, to interviews, to friend’s places, etc. but I’m angry because Anxiety is always around. What do I expect? Do I expect my friend, Anxiety, to change suddenly?
It’s a little like that Einstein quote – “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

If I want something to change I have to start inviting different friends over:

Excitement. Happiness. Laughter. Contentment.

And the most important friend of all: Cutting-myself-some-slack.

28 seems like a good year to just move forward. Can I just, in one second, drop it? (Like it’s hot?) I’ve never really thought about the possibility because Anxiety is such a huge issue when you have to face it. It seems as though there is no way through it, or around it, or sneaking past it while it’s sleeping.

Could it be as simple as I see in the movies where the Heroine screams “I’m not afraid of you!” at the personified monster and at that moment it explodes into a thousand pieces or shrivels up and scurries away under the couch?

I’ve always been told that the best way to fight fear is with love, but I suppose I never really got that until now.

To make the fear stop you have to deeply and completely love and accept yourself…

…and that’s the neat little package I have to give to myself on my 28th birthday.